Once again, Turkish citizens of every ilk are scratching their heads trying to understand why a vexed subject has been brought back to the fore all of a sudden. And across the board Turkey's multifarious print and broadcast commentators are asking whether the government will reinstate capital punishment and, if so, why, and why now.

It began when the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, gave a speech at an AK party meeting earlier in the month, saying that Turkey should consider bringing back capital punishment. He added that opinion polls were in favour of such a reversal and since then Erdogan has raised the issue several times.

The question over why this discussion has been triggered in public remains open. Some commentators believe that it is nothing but a strategic move to appeal to rightwing voters preceding the 2014 presidential election, when, in all probability, Erdogan will be running. Others say the government is on the verge of a compromise with the Kurdish minority and to balance any negative reaction from their own constituency they are playing to the nationalist gallery.

The present debate on capital punishment cannot be detached from the "Kurdish question", which is stuck in a quagmire. Hundreds of Kurdish prisoners in Turkey's jails are on hunger strike demanding the right to speak Kurdish in court and to protest about the conditions of the incarcerated Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the separatist PKK movement, who has not been able to see his lawyers for 15 months (there is speculation that the lawyers have been carrying messages back and forth between the movement and the leader). The hunger strikes have been spreading quickly and several members of the parliament of the Kurdish nationalist BDP, the Peace and Democracy party, have announced that they will join in. With the first group of strikers having now reached a critical stage, all eyes are turned to the government to take a step towards dialogue and reconciliation.

But, more broadly, capital punishment has a sad, intense history in my country. I cannot think of too many nations that have hanged their elected prime ministers. Adnan Menderes, Turkey's popular political figure of 1950s was hanged in 1961, following the first military takeover. Together with him, two prominent cabinet members have met the same end. After the second coup d'etat in 1971, leftist student leaders were hanged, including the iconic Deniz Gezmis, who is seen as Turkey's Che Guevara. Following the third coup d'etat in 1980, 50 people were executed. Among them was the 17-year-old political activist, Erdal Eren. His age was "increased" in court so that he could be executed by the state. Since 1984, probably because we have not had another military takeover, the death penalty has not come into force.

A decade ago it was none other than Erdogan's government that abolished this ancient and vindictive form of punishment. At the time this was applauded by society and media at large, as it constituted part of the country's EU reforms.

Ten years later Erdogan seems to want to bring capital punishment back. This looks even more confusing given the fact that, in a visit to Berlin as recently as October, he claimed Turkey still strongly believed in EU membership. His pro-death-penalty argument is in contradiction with the European Union's human rights credentials, and has therefore created confusion. Adding to this confusion are political and personality differences with the president, Abdullah Gul, who has recently announced that there are no prospects of a change in legislation.

Why this subject all of a sudden and why so many mixed signals, is anybody's guess. Amid the complicated, multilayered and rather abrupt nature of Turkish politics, one trend, however, remains clear. The more the EU forgets about Turkey, the more Turkey forgets about the EU. This in itself should be alarming to anyone who believes in the co-existence of cultures and religions, as well as our shared values of democracy.